Current Requirements for Bathroom Remodel..

Paul has reformatted his "requirements" document (click here to see it) for the bathroom remodel we hope to do this year (before inflation kicks in). Please feel free to pass on to us suggestions such as for tile, fixtures, etc. We want to stay consistent with the era of the house and the other bathrooms.

It's not pink, it's salmon!

Our Ash is Trash...

Our Ash is trash.

In our front yard, we have an ash tree between the sidewalk and street. Recently Paul noticed a bad crack in the trunk. He called an arborist to look at it. The arborist said that although he could attempt to save the tree, he would not recommend it since the dreaded emerald ash borer is rapidly boring in in Rochester (see link). Minnesota has something like 900 million (that's right, see this second link) ash trees and it looks like it's going to be a slaughter. Supposedly Rochester has 80,000 ash trees. The arborist felt it was not worth the risk/effort to try and save the tree (only later to have the city condemn all ash trees in a given area) and unfortunately we agreed. Paul contacted the city forester who came by and officially condemned the tree today.

You get what you pay for...

Paul thought he would try and save some money replacing our heater's Aprilaire humidifier pad himself. He went down to Lowes and bought an aftermarket the pad.

Suddenly our humidifier started leaking water.

After the heating serviceman came twice, we figured out that the replacement pad was slightly thinner (as seen below) than the original manufacturer pad. The serviceman speculated that the thinness allowed the pad to flex when our heater's fan goes into a burst mode (if after running for 10 minutes the fan kicks on high if the desired temperature is not reached) thus causing it to leak. Putting in the original Aprilaire pad fixed the problem. The cost to figure it out? Don't ask Paul...he's still a little tender on that.

The original manufacturer pad on the left...
...is about 1/4 thicker than the one Paul bought on the right...

Decked...

Our cedar deck has been showing its age. So we decided to try fixing some boards and freshen it up. We decided to go with SealMaxx. They came a couple of weeks ago to power wash the deck. In a few weeks they'll be back to apply the stain. We'll see over time if it was a wise decision. We'll put some photos on when the work is complete.

It looks like a contraption made by Wile E. Coyote...

Uh-huh...

Still picking a door...

We're still mulling over our choices for our front door. We plan on putting in a fiberglass door (most likely a ThermaTru). We like the Thermatru American Style Collection door though we have concerns that even without the optional dentil it may clash with our "garrison colonial" house.

So with the magic of the MS-Windows paint utility, Paul threw together some rough images of some possible door combinations and colours. Note that currently the molding around the door is the colour of the house. We're wondering if we should paint it white...or if we should keep it the same colour as the house to keep a balance with the other side (since it's a big picture window, there's not an awful lot of white except the trim around the window).

Because we live in Minnesota and the door goes directly into our front room, we need a storm door. Otherwise we would get some condensation on the hardware (because it gets somewhat cold outside here and we have to run a central humidifier here---it's a dry cold here). The problem with a storm door is that it's only available in limited quantities...unless you have one cu$tom made. Figure about $800 for a custom made aluminum one (with custom colour).

The house front as it is now...
...notice how the white storm door makes things look even worse...

Option A: Leave trim colour of house, oak stained front door.

Option B: Leave trim colour of house, black front door.
The nice thing about a black door is if we ever change the house colour...

Option C: Paint trim white, white 3/4 light door
The nice thing about this kind of door is might mimic the height of the windows

Option D: Paint trim white, oak stained front door.

Option E: Paint trim white, white front door.

Option F: Leave trim colour of house, door colour of shutters.

Option G: Leave trim colour of house, oak stained front door.

Spring buddies...

Yesterday, best buddies Sammy and Veto shared a window Paul opened up to let fresh air in.

Me and you...a two man crew...

Closing one door, opening another...

Having been in our house for ten years, we figure it's time to change our front door. The picture below sums it up pretty sadly, it's a 1959 door that is painted and (as you get ever closer) ugly. When we did our kitchen remodel, we replaced our side and rear doors with fiberglass ones and were pretty happy with them.

So we are thinking of replacing our front door with a Thermatru American Style Collection door with the natural oak stain on the exterior (and painted white on the interior since our interior trim is white). We won't get the optional dentil shelf since it won't go with the style of our house. And the glass would be clear (again because we don't want it to be too missionary).

Any thoughts out there? Do you think this would look bad? Should we make the exterior of the door white? We don't plan on putting on a storm door-- do you think we should? Do you think we should paint white the trim around the exterior of our front door?

Our house with our ugly front door...